ANC Limpopo: Provincial Government Quarterly Performance

8 August 2011

On 3 and 4 August 2011, the ANC-led government in Limpopo held its Provincial Government Lekgotla to conduct a quarterly assessment (April-June 2011) of the current financial year and to plan for the 2012/13 financial year.

Clean government

The ANC in Limpopo is pleased with the first quarter achievements of our provincial government of the 2011/12 financial year.

We take pride in some of our provincial departments for achieving clean audits. These include, Local Government and Housing and Agriculture.

Furthermore, Fetakgomo municipality and Road Agency Limpopo (RAL) have also attained clean audit outcomes.
Contrary to media-contrived reports about Limpopo being a haven of corruption, these audit outcomes prove that the Limpopo government is running a clean government, and that it is acutely attending to perceptions of corruption whilst ensuring clinical adherence to governance, including aligning to the 2014 Clean Audit goals.

We wholly support the establishment of the Provincial Clean Audit Committee led by the Premier, Cde. Cassel Mathale since this will provide the necessary political weight to ensure attainment of the 2014 Clean Audit objectives.

Job creation

The provincial ANC government has committed itself to creating 166 thousand jobs. So far, this government has produced 37% of this job target, which is far above its quarterly target. This is a concrete demonstration of the provincial government`s commitment to progressively change living conditions for poor people. Moreover, we applaud our provincial government for meeting its quarterly infrastructural spending target of 25%, leading to even more job creation.

Quarterly Performance Two Last

However, many departments, with the exception of Public Works, have not implemented the EPWP program. We urge all provincial government departments to not only commence with urgency but also fast-track the execution of this strategic program.

On the other hand, 1.8% jobs were shed by the private sector in this quarter; this is another point of concern for the ANC in Limpopo. These job losses have negatively impacted our unemployment, which has been pushed up to 21%.

In the Mining and Financial Services sectors employment has declined by 9 and 1% respectively.
This variation in employment trends in the private and public sectors, reflected by the statistics above, shows that where government is in control of economic resources, higher levels of employment are created. This in turn leads to improved provision of basic needs for the poor. This phenomenon strengthens our case for nationalization of mines and other strategic economic sectors.

We call on our government to decisively address all challenges identified in this quarter to bolster its highly commendable achievements aimed at changing the living conditions of our people.

This positive economic performance of the Limpopo provincial government should serve as further encouragement for cadres deployed in the state and government institutions, to ignore negative, ill-informed sentiments and unwarranted criticisms directed at the provincial government.